The embodiments disclosed herein relate to a heater for warming nutritional liquid fed to a pre-term infant.
Nutritional delivery to a preterm infant or enteral feeding is an important part of caring for the preterm infant in neonate-natal intensive care units. Typically, the preterm infant is fed with a feeding tube that delivers breast milk or neonatal formula directly into the stomach of the preterm infant. The feeding tube is generally introduced either through the nose (i.e., nasally) or through the mouth (i.e., gastrically). Previously, the breast milk or neonatal formula was fed to the neonate while the breast milk or neonate formula was at room temperature (i.e., below body temperature). However, studies have shown that preterm infants respond favorably when the nutritional liquid (e.g., breast milk or neonatal formula) coincides with the body temperature of a person (i.e., 98.6° F.). When the nutritional liquid is provided to the preterm infant at a temperature closer to the body temperature of a person, the preterm infant was found to digest more of the nutritional liquid. Moreover, other studies have found that the lower the body temperature of the preterm infant, the higher the likelihood of mortality of the preterm infant. As such, it is important to preserve the preterm infant's energy so that the preterm infant does not need to divert energy away from heating and growth to generate heat. If the nutritional liquid is fed to the preterm infant at room temperature, the preterm infant must divert energy that could be used for healing and growth to heat him or herself due to digestion of the cold nutritional liquid. Accordingly, it would be beneficial to feed preterm infants with nutritional liquid raised to the body temperature of a person to reduce the amount of energy diverted away from healing and growth to digestion and heat generation.
In response, prior art devices have been introduced for warming nutritional liquid (e.g., breast milk or neonate formula) provided to pre-term infants. Typically, the nutritional liquid is warmed in a neonate feeding syringe or warm nutritional liquid is poured into the syringe and then fed to the neonate. Unfortunately, even if the nutritional liquid is pre-warmed to body temperature, the temperature of the nutritional liquid in the feeding syringe decreases to room temperature during feeding due to the long feeding time. The average feeding time is about 30 minutes to 4 hours. Heat is lost through the neonate feeding syringe. Also, heat is lost through a tube routed to the stomach of the neonate. In particular, as the nutritional liquid flows from the feeding syringe to the neonate through the tube, significant heat loss is experienced through the tubing since the nutritional liquid travels through the tubing at a relatively slow rate. Accordingly, even if the nutritional liquid in the neonate feeding syringe is raised to the body temperature of the mother, such warming is rendered ineffective since there is a significant temperature drop as the nutritional liquid flows through the tube.
Accordingly, there is a need in the art for an improved method and device for heating nutritional liquid fed to the pre-term infant.